


Sweet words, sleeping wish

by Mariyekos



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17181002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariyekos/pseuds/Mariyekos
Summary: “I love you,” she said one night, staring at the stars.“I don’t know how I should be saying this, but...I love you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I love you and I wish I could let you know more than just that. You’re always so fancy and formal. Elegant. I’m not like that. So I don’t really know how else I could phrase it, but… I love you. More than just my words could ever show.”After a long day, Zeke falls asleep while stargazing with Tatiana, leaving the woman alone with her own thoughts. She spends the time thinking about how much she's enjoyed their relationship, and how much she loves him, and how she wishes she could phrase it just right. Eventually, Tatiana realizes Zeke wasn't sleeping as deeply as she thought, and Zeke takes a turn telling her how precious she is, and how much he loves her back.





	Sweet words, sleeping wish

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably my favorite Fire Emblem couple, if not my favorite video game couple of all time. I love both Tatiana and Zeke, and their relationship is so sweet that I have so many fic ideas for them just sitting around waiting to be written. This is the first thing I've ever written for them though, so I'm still getting a handle on their characters, and it'll be a while before I get to them all. Thank you for opening this, and I hope you enjoy.

“I love you,” she said one night, staring at the stars.

“I don’t know how I should be saying this, but...I love you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I love you and I wish I could let you know more than just that. You’re always so fancy and formal. Elegant. I’m not like that. So I don’t really know how else I could phrase it, but… I love you. More than just my words could ever show.”

They’d known each other for almost three years. They’d lived together for a large part of that time. They were far from strangers, and yet-

She looked down at the sleeping man beside her. He’d drifted off twenty or so minutes before, exhausted having come back from the base that evening after several hours of riding. She knew he wasn’t getting much sleep, so it was no surprise he’d fallen asleep as they lied there in the cool night air, the sea breeze softly running over their bodies, looking up to the sky in relative silence.

She frowned. He did so much and she was worried that one day he’d be overrun. That one day he would sputter out and she wouldn’t be there to help him. 

When he was at home she could force him into bed, she could give him a cup of tea and a blanket, she could massage his shoulders and take care of the wounds he’d ignored for the last week because he hadn’t deemed them severe enough to mention while back at base. When he was home she could love him like he deserved to be loved, and care for him as she’d always wished someone would for her.

And in return for all she did for him, she felt like the most loved person in the world. Whenever he came back from a rough day and his eyebrows were drawn together, his shoulder tight, tense as could be, it all melted away when he saw her. She would watch as his face softened and he let out the breath he’d been holding for who knew how long, walking toward her to envelop her in a hug. He almost never ran. He was a little too refined, or maybe just a little too tired for that most days. But he’d walk as fast as someone could without it being called running, and he would wrap his arms around her shoulders and back and squeeze her tight like she was something precious that he’d rediscovered after having lost it years before and never wanted to lose sight of again.

Not all of the tension he held melted away in that moment, of course. That’s why she had her tea and her massages and their talks. He would let out his frustrations and tell her about all the things that he so desperately wanted to fix back at base but couldn’t, and she would listen and tell him what she thought. He’d consider it, and would listen to her suggestions and nod away. Her reassurances usually worked, and she was glad for that.

Then they would switch. 

She would tell him about the one frustrating traveller who had visited the church and insisted on praying in some special type of room that they didn’t have, or how sad she’d been when she’d walked all the way to market with this huge basket only to find that the woman she wanted to buy from wasn’t there that day, or how bugs had gotten into some of the berries in the garden and she was worried they’d eat away all her hard work before she managed to harvest a single bunch. He’d listen and massage her shoulders then, or rub her hands, or hold her against his chest, and he’d give her his own brand of reassurance. He’d make a (usually poor, he wasn’t the best at humor) joke about the traveller, he would tell her that it was good exercise walking to the market even if nothing was there, but sympathise with her anyway about how frustrating that must’ve been, and he’d promise to ask around to hopefully find some recommendations on how to protect the garden and get rid of the bugs, telling her he would see if they had any fancy bug-repellants in the capitol the next time he was called there for duty.

And oh, the faces he would make as he did it. He could be such a sweetheart when he put his mind to it! Sometimes he’d make those lovey-dovey eyes at her, that warm gaze when his furrowed brow was relaxed for once and that slight smile would curl the edges of his lips. But so often he would say things with such a serious face that it made her giggle. He’d talk about how much of a pest the bugs were and how they needed to be relocated, or possibly eliminated, because they were troubling her, and he would do it with a slight frown and his eyebrows pulled together and his arms crossed or fingers clenched like he was talking about an invading army and it never failed to make her smile. 

Sometimes he’d catch on and realize she was giggling at him, and say a small (slightly exasperated, but in a weird loving way that he did so differently from everyone else) “Tatiana,  _ please _ ,” to scold her or tell her to be a little more serious, but most of the time he just ended up chuckling himself, or shaking his head with a sweet smile gracing his features. Then all talk of bugs and bad things would float away, and they would go into all their favorite things of the day.

He would talk about how funny it was when in the middle of yelling at everyone for wasting time being so careful in their actions, Jerome tripped on a branch and fell into a mud puddle, and the two of them would laugh, launching into a discussion of all the dumb things they’d seen him do, or all the fun little pranks they could pull on him, or all the ways they thought he would react if he were to suddenly lose his position. 

She would tell him about how she saw the most beautiful flowers growing on the cliffside, the ones that she’d seen for years and years since she’d come to the village but hadn’t the year before, worrying her until that moment that a little bit of her adolescence was gone. He would comment on some of the flowers he’d seen while traveling, and they’d play a game where he would describe them the best he could and she would try to attach a name. 

They’d started up a little book, actually. He would take it with him when he went out and would do his best to write down the description of the flower, sometimes even sketch it, and bring it back for her to identify. A few months ago he’d started pressing one flower from each new bunch he found, bringing it back to help with the identification process. He would always apologize for not being able to bring her the live thing, and assure her it was far more beautiful before he’d pressed it, and Tatiana would always tell him it was fine, and that she was happy he’d thought of her, and add the flower to the bunch she kept by her bedside in her own copy of the flower book he had. It was similar to his, but in her own handwriting and with her own drawings. Those drawings were some strange mix of a copy of the pressed flower she’d been given and the flower drawing he had made so Tatiana couldn’t say how accurate they really were to the living things, but she liked it. Sometimes when he was gone she would flip it open and look at the flowers, wondering if there was any chance he was looking at the same page too.

She knew some couples liked to look at the moon, and that was perfectly fine. But she liked her book. It was more intimate. It was something only the two of them had. It reminded her that she was loved.

And that brought her back to her current dilemma. She was in love. Madly. And she wanted to tell him that a million times over. She wanted to tell him in a way that conveyed her true feelings, that let him know what she felt was stronger than just a passing piece of adoration, that she felt so warm and cozy and fuzzy whenever he held her or called her ‘my dear’ or ‘my love’ or ‘darling’ or any of the pet names he’d come up with.

She just didn’t know how to say that. Whenever he said he loved her, it wasn’t just a plain ‘Tatiana, I love you.’ It was always more than that. It was a ‘Tatiana, dear, I can’t begin to describe how much you mean to me. Every moment I’m by your side, I feel as though I’m being enveloped in waves of warmth, and love, and care, and’-

Oh, that wasn’t very good either! See, she wanted to copy him, but he was so smart and varied and good with words and she just couldn’t do it. Not that she was dumb. She knew she wasn’t, and he would always assure her she wasn’t when she got into a funk and started to doubt herself. She’d gotten along for years on her own, she helped the church, she helped teach the village children when the normal teacher was out sometimes. She was smart, and she knew it. 

But she wasn’t good with words like him. She wanted to be, but poetry and complex flattery weren’t her strong suits. Her talents lied in other places, and she knew it.

But  _ just once _ , she wanted to be smart in a different way. She wanted to be good at poetry and words and expressing her love to him in such a way that he couldn’t mistake what she wanted to say for anything other than what it was. She wanted him to know her heart.

She looked back down at him, sleeping there in the grass. He’d probably be horrified when he woke up, would apologize profusely for being so careless and leaving her awake alone when he had tried so hard to come back early that night to be with her. But she didn’t mind. She was just glad to have him by her side. Rest was important. Talking was nice too, but a big part of love was wanting the best for your partner. And at the moment, him resting was far more important than any silly chatter they could come up with.

The breeze continued to blow past them, no stronger but no weaker than it had been blowing since the sun had set. It blew through his hair, picking up the short strands and making them flutter about. It was very cute. Her own hair was much longer and thicker, so it didn’t move around as much. That made it all the more cute and special. 

It was fun watching him there, seeing the rise and fall of his chest and the peaceful look he wore when asleep that seemed more and more of a rarity lately when he was awake. His left arm was curled around her shoulders, his left hand on her left shoulder and his right hand on his stomach. He’d only moved a little bit since falling asleep, curling just the tiniest bit toward her. It was hard to see, and if she hadn’t seen him lie down stiff as a rod she wouldn’t know it. He always slept so straight when he was alone. How that could be comfortable or particularly restful Tatiana didn’t know.

She brought a hand to his bangs, pushing them aside for a moment to place a small kiss on his forehead. He made a slight movement, just a little twitch, but didn’t open his eyes.

Tatiana took a deep breath, and turned her head to face the stars. “I love you, Zeke.”

The breeze kept on blowing. She could hear the waves lapping at the cliffside down below.

“I love you Zeke, and you mean more to me than I think I could ever manage to tell you. When I’m with you I feel whole in a way I never realized I could feel. I feel like I’m the most precious girl- no, the most precious anything in existence. Like I’m the crown jewel.” 

She paused for a moment to take in another breath.

“I feel like… I feel like I’m home when I’m with you, no matter where I am. It doesn’t matter that we walked two miles in the snow to visit Auntie Sal only to realize we forgot the bread we were bringing her and had to go all the way back and then there again. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t able to bring back that one skirt you saw that you thought matched my hair when you were out one day. It doesn’t matter that we missed the last festival of the season because you were at work and I was at work and we both ended up so busy we didn’t realize it had come until it was too late to make it even if we left that minute. When I have you by my side, all of those things are still a little disappointing, but they’re not...crushing, like they used to be. I don’t feel like I’m empty anymore when those things happen. 

“Because when I’m walking through the snow I’m walking through it with you, and when you mention you didn’t bring me a skirt you thought matched my hair I know you were thinking of me when we were apart and that makes me smile, and when we miss the festival that I really wanted to go to it’s okay because I have someone to go back home to and to complain to and cry with and laugh with and be with.

“I’m not lonely like I used to be. I wasn’t always lonely, and I still am sometimes, but not like before. I have someone who wants to be with me, and someone I want to be with. Someone who goes searching for flowers when he’s on military expeditions, and someone who reports back on all the failures of that one guy I don’t like, and someone who will sit with me for hours describing all the cool and beautiful places he’s visited that he wants to take me to someday.”

Tears had welled up in Tatiana’s eyes. She brought her left hand to her face to wipe them away. She was so happy.

“I love you Zeke. So, so much. And I know you’re sleeping and you can’t hear me but I’m going to say this anyway to practice so that one day you’ll know how I really feel about you but in a much, much prettier way. I love you. No matter where you or I are, or how I can or can’t say it. I love you.”

Tatiana let out a little choked giggle, wiping away another tear.

Then, she felt the hand on her left shoulder tighten, pulling her closer. Her head shot to the side to look at Zeke, but his eyes were closed by the time her gaze landed on them. She felt heat rise in her face, a blush surely covering her features.

“Were you listening this whole time?” she whispered in what was more like a squeak. 

One eye opened. Zeke smiled. “Not the whole time, no. When I woke up you were already in the middle of talking. But you were so deep into your speech I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Tatiana blushed harder and turned her head away. Zeke sat up, pulling her to look at him.

“Tatiana, dearest, I want you to know that the words you use to convey your love to me are of no importance. Every moment I have you here, smiling with me, giggling in that sweet voice of yours, pulling at my arm with a soft touch that could only belong to you, I can feel the love pouring off of you in waves. Every sparkle that jumps from your eye as you talk about your day. Every little scolding or exclamation of wonder you make fills me with a precious warmth only you can bring. You don’t need to be a poet to let me understand how you feel. You don’t need to change yourself for me.” Zeke cupped a hand around her cheek. “Just be Tatiana. Just be the woman I fell in love with. If you wish to change yourself because you’re truly unhappy with the way things are, then that’s perfectly fine. But don’t change something about yourself because you think  _ I  _ am unhappy or displeased with it. You’re wonderful just as you are, my love.”

Zeke pulled Tatiana closer, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. She rested her head on his chest for a little bit, and he put his chin on the top of her head.

Then she began to giggle, and he pulled away, a baffled expression on his face.

“What? Did I say or do something wrong? What could possibly be so funny about what I’ve said?”

Tatiana just giggled harder, trying to cover her mouth to calm herself down.

“It’s just,” she began, periodically cut off by giggles, “it’s just that I guess my impression of you was more spot-on than I thought it would be!”

Zeke’s eyebrows furrowed. “Your impression of me? What impression? What have you been saying about me while I slept?!”

Tatiana jumped to her feet, and jogged a few feet away. She clasped her hands together and leaned forward, wearing a huge smile. “Oh, nothing important. Now come on, let’s get home before we catch colds. While I do love you, and want to be with you whenever I can for as long as I can, getting sick together isn’t the best way we can do that. Now let’s get going!”

Tatiana then turned and ran in the direction of their house, hearing Zeke shout a confused, “Wait!” behind her before the sound of his boots hitting the ground started up.

“I love you so, so much,” she whispered one last time, giggling and speeding up. Maybe poetry and fancy words weren’t her thing. But she could always tell and show him in other ways. 

And her current way of doing that was making the two of them run as fast as they could (or as fast as Tatiana could; Zeke was faster than her and would probably slow down as soon as he caught up) toward their home so they could get a good night’s sleep in a nice soft bed, without worrying about waking up to red noses and coughs.

That, she thought, was love.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I've had this done for just over a month and never posted because I was worried about Zeke's dialogue and that it didn't seem quite right, but I decided that it was now or never. I had a little trouble with Tatiana too, because I wanted her to talk about not being good at one thing without making her seem like she wasn't good at anything/one of those characters that needs a man to do anything. The 'woman who needs a man to see her true worth' trope can frustrate me, so I tried to keep it to a minimum here. She just has trouble with a thing, as all people do with something or another at one point in their lives. So she's super smart and strong and powerful and great at a bunch of things- she's just not confident in her phrasing yet. That's all. Doubt+friendly support to help her out of her slump. Now that that's out of the way...
> 
> Most of my fics are dialogue heavy, so this was a big change, and I hope the style is okay! Once again, thank you for reading.


End file.
